Women Writing Women Writers
Women Writing Women Writers
To celebrate International Women’s Day 2020, I’m sharing eleven books starring female writers, written BY female writers — new & old classics from my own home library. I’m always thrilled to receive recommendations of fictional female writers, so if you have a gem to share, please drop me a line.
In no particular order of awesomeness…
My Brilliant Career ~ Miles Franklin
Published in 1901, when Franklin was only 21 years old, My Brilliant Career is about headstrong Sybylla Melvyn’s frustrated striving to transcend 19th century restrictions on women, and achieve her ‘brilliant career’ as a writer.
In a fascinating side note about her journey to publication — Franklin originally sent her manuscript to numerous Australian publishers, who all rejected it. It was renowned bush poet, Henry Lawson, to whom she sent the manuscript in a wonderful example of never-ever-giving-up, who finally recognised this novel for what it was: brilliant, and destined to become an Australian classic. Franklin went on to publish 19 books in her lifetime, and her legacy continues with the prestigious literary award established by her estate, and named after her.
Sybylla was right when she uttered these words…
‘“I am given to something which a man never pardons a woman. You will draw away as though I were a snake when you hear.”
“What is it?”
“I am given to writing stories, and literary people predict I will yet be an authoress.”’
The Thirteenth Tale ~ Diane Setterfield
Angelfield House is the gothic, abandoned home of famous author Vida Winter, and a chilling secret. When a bookseller’s daughter, Margaret Lea, is summoned to join the author in her faraway, forgotten home on the Yorkshire Moors to write Vida’s Winter’s biography, she enters a world of storytelling, secrecy, and haunting memory. Vida Winter, despite being ‘England’s best-loved writer’ is an enigma — ‘as famous for her secrets as her stories’ — and Margaret Lea is about to discover exactly why she has been chosen to give posthumous life to a ghost story.
This is an atmospheric modern classic, perfect for lovers of mysterious homes, cluttered libraries and the storyteller’s craft...
‘There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.”
Anne of The Island ~ L. M. Montgomery
Now our ever-beloved Anne Shirley is grown up and attending Redmond College in Kingsport, studying for her BA. Years after founding her Story Club, Anne still dreams of being a writer. She pens a short story, which she gives the ‘nice and alliterative’ title of Averil’s Atonement. Anne’s Averil is a notably willful character…
‘Averil is such an unmanageable heroine. She will do and say things I never meant her to.’
(I think all writers can empathize with this - but especially this writer, a willful Averil.)
Anne sends her manuscript off hopefully to the biggest literary magazines. Rejected time and again, Anne eventually puts her story away in a trunk. This plot point actually mirror’s Montgomery’s experience on her path to publication with Anne of Green Gables —which was rejected by multiple publishers, and then languished for some time afterward in a hatbox.
However, Anne’s best friend, Diana Barry, spies a different kind of value in Anne’s story — mailing Averil’s Atonement away to the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company for the chance to win a $25 prize. Thanks to Diana, Anne is finally published! But this well-paid achievement is not without humiliation for our writer, who had previously declared she was ‘in pursuit of fame, not filthy lucre’ and that her literary dreams were ‘untainted by mercenary considerations’.
I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
Dodie Smith created the scribbling heroine Cassandra Mortmain, who lives in a crumbling albeit beautiful castle with her eccentric family — including a father crippled by writer’s block, a modelling stepmother who likes to commune, nearly naked, with nature, and a sister yearning to live in a Jane Austen novel. In this coming-of-age story, Cassandra pursues her literary ambitions by recording everything as honestly as she can in a ‘beautiful blue leather manuscript book’, writing even to the very last page of her journal...
‘I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious.”
I Capture the Castle also contains many delightful allusions and references sure to delight an avid reader, and remains a much-loved, warmly humorous classic more than 70 years since it was first published.
My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante
The first of a widely praised series known as the ‘Neapolitan Novels’, My Brilliant Friend introduces us to young Elena Greco in 1950s Naples —a diligent, promising student growing up in a poor community, full of violence. Elena becomes both transfixed and threatened by the precocious literary talents of her rebellious friend, Lila. Driven by jealousy and desire to match her friend’s emerging prowess - Elena pushes herself to achieve even greater academic triumph, striving well beyond her rival, and their impoverished neighborhood. Without giving too much away, Elena will, in later books, achieve great fame and critical acclaim as a writer. This is an extraordinary series about female friendship and ambition, by a mysterious and pseudonymous author, with global success...
‘Those moments lightened my heart and head: she and I and all those well-crafted words.’
Sylvester - Georgette Heyer
Renowned Regency fiction author Georgette Heyer gives us a hoydenish country miss with literary ambitions in Phoebe Marlow — a secret authoress, with a recently published novel lampooning the Who’s Who of London society. (The ton.)
Just listen to Phoebe’s delight in her published work:
‘So handsome were they, those three slim volumes, elegantly attired in blue leather, the fore-edges of the pages gilded, and the title enclosed in a scroll! It didn’t seem possible that between those opulent covers reposed a story of her weaving.’
This novel within a novel theme is used to great effect when Phoebe is courted by the same self-important duke she has already parodied as a villain within her book.
(If you’ve ever wondered why Heyer remains a bestselling international author four generations on, I highly recommend Stephen Fry’s talk on his love for Georgette Heyer.)
Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
I do believe Jo March remains the foremost female fictional writer who springs to mind for readers —and moviegoers— despite having been written into existence over 150 years ago. Has there ever been a writing heroine so endearing? Feisty Jo’s yearning for independence and literary success is still so natural for us to relate to, and root for —even when she doesn’t marry Laurie, despite all our imploring, over countless generations. (Indeed, Alcott found herself under great pressure from devoted young fans to marry Jo March off, and wed Jo to Professor Bhaer instead to thwart those expectations.)
Jo’s deep love for her family, and her resilience and determination in the face of war, hardship and immense grief continue to inspire us today.
Jo’s literary aspirations, in her own words:
‘I’d have…rooms piled with books and I’d write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous as Laurie’s music. I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that is my favourite dream.’
(Yep, mine too.)
Here’s five wonderful female writer’s on what Jo March has meant to them.
The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
There is no mistake in my including this true-life story among female writers of fiction. Anne Frank, after all, deserved a long, happy life writing stories — and was denied that opportunity by the horrors of the Nazi occupation. Even at her tender age and under such extreme circumstances Anne showed courage and determination as a writer...
‘Writing a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I feel like writing, and I have an even greater need to get all kinds of things off my chest.’
It became Anne’s hope that she would one day publish a book based on her diary, and she worked hard toward this dream, editing and reworking her diary until her tragic death.
A Brief History of Montmaray - Michelle Cooper
In 1936, sixteen-year-old Sophie FitzOsbourne lives in a crumbling castle on the tiny, remote island kingdom of Montmaray — and she’s a budding wordsmith. For her birthday, Sophie receives a magnificent journal…
‘A hundred blank pages thick as parchment, and a morocco binding, and it is almost too lovely to write in.’
(Oh how well we understand that feeling.)
Over the course of her journal writing, Sophie and her unconventional family — headed by the 'completely mad’ King John — will find they are not so isolated from Europe and the 20th century as they imagined, when two German officers land on Montmaray. This is a gothic, atmospheric story, with a library tower, storms and Nazis, Austen references, and WWII history.
A Brief History of Montmaray will remind readers of Dodie Smith’s classic, with its scribbling teenager in a decaying castle, and is suitable for a YA audience.
Emily’s Quest - L. M. Montgomery
We return to Montgomery for another writing heroine, this time the lesser-known Emily Starr, of New Moon. Emily, like Anne, is an orphan, raised by extended family on Prince Edward Island. The three-book Emily of New Moon series details Emily’s climb up her ‘Alpine Path’ to literary success - a journey conveying Montgomery’s own desires and endeavours.
‘The Alpine Path’ is a symbolic phrase, taken from poetry, and was later used for the title of Montgomery’s autobiography…
‘The Alpine Path, so hard, so steep,
That leads to heights sublime.
How I may reach that far-off goal
Of true and honoured fame
And write upon its shining scroll
A woman’s humble name.’Emily’s Quest is actually the third novel of the series, completing Emily’s passionate writing quest. Here’s Emily, earlier defending her call to write:
‘“Tell me this--if you knew you would be poor as a church mouse all your life--if you knew you'd never have a line published--would you still go on writing--would you?'
'Of course I would,' said Emily disdainfully. 'Why, I have to write--I can't help it at times--I've just got to.”’
The Green Wind - Thurley Fowler
Although it was the winner of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Book of The Year Award for 1986, chances are you might never have heard of Jennifer Robinson —plucky young Australian girl and aspiring writer. In The Green Wind, Thurley Fowler acquaints us with the poor Robinson family, living in a rural fruit-growing community in 1948. Of the four Robinson children, eleven-year-old Jennifer is sassy, quick-witted and clever, with a ready talent for writing. In fact, she harbours hidden dreams of authorship…
‘One day I want to be a writer, she thought. Just imagine what it must be like to see your name on a book! It’s my biggest secret. If I told anyone in this family, they’d keel over and die from laughing.’
The Green Wind chronicles Jennifer’s growing up, her search for genuine friendship, and most poignantly — her attempts to finally see her name in print.
This is a lovely story, equally enjoyable to a aspiring grown woman, as it is an aspiring young writer. Fans of Little Women, Seven Little Australians, and Anne of Green Gables will enjoy meeting Jennifer, too.
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What are your favourite novels of writing heroines? Comment below, or send me a message. I am never not adding to my To-Read pile…
xx Averil
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Novels featured:
Alcott, L. M. (2008) Little Women. Priory Classics. (Original work published 1868)
Cooper, M. (2009). A Brief History of Montmaray. Alfred A. Knopf. (Original work published 2008)
Ferrante, E. (2012) My Brilliant Friend. EuropaEditions. (Original work published 2012)
Fowler, T. (1990) The Green Wind. Weldon Publishing. (Original work published 1985)
Frank, A. (2002) The Diary of a Young Girl. Puffin. (Original work published 1995)
Franklin, M. (1997) My Brilliant Career. HarperCollinsPublishers. (Original work published 1901)
Heyer, G. (2004) Slyvester. Arrow Books. (Original work published 1957)
Montgomery, L. M. (1992) Anne of the Island. Bantam Skylark. (Original work published 1915)
Montgomery, L. M. (1991) Emily’s Quest. HarperCollinsPublishers. (Original work published 1927)
Setterfield, D. (2007) The Thirteenth Tale. Orion Books. (Original work published 2006)
Smith, D. (2001) I Capture the Castle. Red Fox. (Original work published 1949)